Dimension NXG's New Headset Brings Rural Indian Schools to the Future of Augmented Reality «Next Reality

The Indian startup Dimension NXG brings augmented reality headsets with a bold idea to the Indian consumer market. It is planned to provide a new type of AR headset to school children in remote Indian villages from grade 5 (age 10) to graduation.

AjnaLite headset, delivered to students, is the second in Dimension NXG's AjnaLens product line, which includes the AjnaOne military headset, which is currently in closed beta, in addition to the AjnaBolt military headset already launched expected to be launched in early 2020.

Students can purchase headsets through 32 distributors with public and private schools in India's small-population cities. So far, the company already has 3,000 pre-sale orders prior to launching AjnaLite in December.

It may raise some eyebrows when Indian schools use a high-end headset that many businesses would like to get used to. However, half of the upfront price of around $ 632 for online shoppers is paid by major Indian companies under an Indian rule that since 201

3 has required them to spend 2% of their profits on education and other social causes. The remaining costs are borne by the students.

Dimension NXG

To keep costs down, Dimension NXG does not do this Contains the same look and feel as familiar headsets Hololens Smartglasses from Microsoft.

Unlike Hololens, AjnaLite is also a combined AR and VR headset. According to the company, the AR component of the headset is particularly well-suited to certain teacher-led subjects, such as: For example, natural sciences, while the VR component can be used to teach more immersive subjects such as history. Partner content developers with expertise in individual school subjects will help populate the cloud-based content platform EduXR. Under Indian rules, however, the government will set the overall curriculum.

AjnaLite offers additional features that meet the needs of the classroom. For example, teachers can grab the attention of their students wearing headphones by using a feature called AjnaHolocast. The software resides on a teacher's laptop that allows them to manipulate an object in 3D while several students are watching.

This is a type of AR or VR where the teacher can control what the students are looking at while everyone is in the same room, making it more cooperative.

– Dimension NXG co-founder Pankaj

"One of the biggest challenges of distance learning is isolating, and everyone is in their own different world, but education is more cooperative," said Dimension NXG co-founder Pankaj Raut opposite Next Reality. "This is a type of AR or VR where the teacher can control what the students are seeing while everyone is in the same room, and this reinforces collaboration."

AjnaLite is set up to work with the Android-based business operating system with apps already installed, while developers have the ability to develop content in Unity using the Dimension NXG Unity SDK.

Although the AjnaLite looks a bit like the discontinued AR / VR Meta 2 headset, it looks different: it's completely wireless. It also has a screen resolution lower than that of Meta 2 with a resolution of 2560 x 1440 at 1920 x 1080. This is an AMOLED screen with the proprietary technology that makes shaders look more like holograms. The AjnaLite is available in two versions, one with 3 degrees of freedom for sitting use and one with 6 degrees of freedom.

The Hololens is arguably the world's leading enterprise training headset India. For example, to cater for the thousands of languages ​​and dialects spoken throughout India, content has already been translated into English, Hindi and Marathi. Dimension NXG plans to add at least 50 languages ​​within the next month.

Dimension NXG

In a recent Microsoft interview, Dan Ayoub argued that the use of AR led to a reduction in class time 60% and indicates the potential of distance learning. The benefits of AR in education are also being touted by the US Department of Education, which a few years ago ran an accelerator for the development of AR and VR education solutions.

A stumbling block to educational headphones is the use of VR for children under the age of 13. VR headset makers like Oculus, Samsung and Sony often advise against it. This is probably due to a lack of research and businesses that may be over-cautious because they fear legal action.

On the other hand, according to Raut, smartphones are already being used by many children around the world and therefore by children from an early age. They are already adapting to a form of immersive computing. Unfortunately, smartphones are currently relatively rare in India: nationwide smartphone penetration is 24%, and in some rural areas this rate drops to about 11%.

Image on Dimension NXG

In other words, many people in India still have no opportunity to benefit from the AR-enhanced education To benefit from apps powered by Apple and Google.

Especially for rural children, the Indian education system is also out of reach. Sometimes this is because teaching is not offered in the child's language or there is no way to teach, which leads to problems in participation. However, Raut believes that they should have the same access to education as in other parts of the world, starting with a global, AR-extended and interactive education. This is the company's vision to learn something different. Even the word "ajna" comes from ancient Indian spiritual texts for that part of the spiritual body that is associated with dreaming and broadening the imagination.

Raut grew up in the city of Sangli and decided to study mechatronics at the university level. I could not find any courses across the country. He graduated from the UK and later decided that India was ready to upgrade training.

Image via Dimension NXG

This sentiment fueled his decision to launch Dimension NXG, driven by the India Innovation Hub accelerator (2018), a training partnership between Facebook and the Indian government-sponsored T-Hub incubator , The accelerator will feed into Facebook's FbStart program, which offers startups free technical services and trains them to use Facebook's developer tools.

"With AnjaLite, the target market is Asia and India, which is more feasible for us as a company than for other markets It's a challenge to reach the US, Latin America and Europe because we already have enough work to do We want to help people here, "said Raut. "Of course we want to influence people globally, but we have to start somewhere and that's why we choose India."